[CLUG] RSA dead at last...

[Bill Appelbe]

Hi
One thing you seem to be ignoring is that the patent
never applied to use of the algorithm outside the USA and
Canada.
So it wont change anything for Baltimore unless you are an
American customer.

People seem to get very upset at these algorithms getting
patents, I think that in some cases they are deserved
(though maybe with a shorter lifespan) and RSA is one of those
cases, it took a lot to come up with that algorithm and they
should be rewarded.

Bill

At 12:05 08/09/00 +0100, adam beecher wrote:
> > RSA the company or RSA the algorithm?
> >
>The latter. RSA the company released it two weeks before the patent expired,
>which demonstrates that they're only 99.99% bastards.
>
> > I don't see how the patent expiry will kill either of them.  RSA the
> > algorithm is widely used.  Developers who are using RSA Security Inc.'s
> > BSAFE toolkit won't be too keen on rebuilding their code around another
> > toolkit.  And RSA Security Inc. has known all along that the patent will
> > expire and if they haven't planned for it, they will have some very unhappy
> > shareholders on their hands.
> >
>It won't kill anything. (I didn't say it would - I meant "the patent is dead".
>Sorry 'bout da.) But now developers don't have to licence it anymore, cutting
>costs significantly. All to the greater good for security and 
>cryptography. The
>question now is whether Baltimore will Open Source the "Lite" developer 
>toolkit,
>or release it under a restrictive licence.
>
>adam
>
>
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